64 Squares to Academic Success

During the past few years I have had the opportunity to introduce chess on our elementary campus. I am a firm believer that all students need to be provided the opportunity to learn the game. Initially, however, I was not convinced whether or not I believed the “boast” that a thorough understanding of the game would boost academic grades and test scores.

I decided to do a little study of my own. What I found was that three correlations could be attributed to those students who received consistent chess instruction. The first, as documented in the movie “Knights of the South Bronx,” demonstrates how students gain self-confidence as they learn the game. This self-confidence is not just in playing the game, but also is evident in their everyday life. The second, is related but goes much deeper. Students who participate in chess tend to build a sense of intrinsic motivation. This motivation gives them the strength and courage to reach out, to participate in more programs whether school related or extracurricular. Shy students tend to become leaders. The third correlation proved that student test scores and academic progress was enhanced due to the critical thinking skills they learned from the game.

Out of this “little” study, I decided to use my Reading Specialist degree and begin pulling literature that has a chess theme. I found there are literally hundreds of rich literary works out here for children. Using these books, and continuing to teach the children the game, I have been able to build a bridge between chess and using chess principles to solve life lessons or experiences. Chess can be taught through every content area we use today. This being true, why would educators not jump at the chance to provide chess instruction for their students?

Children thrive in an environment where chess is taught. 64 Squares to Academic Success is a belief that all children, regardless of academic or socio-economic level, can benefit from a consistent chess program. The challenge now stands in the hand of the educator. It is your move.

Teaching Chess: A Serendipitous Event

I currently work as the assistant director for IMACS (Institute for Mathematics And Computer Science) of North Miami. We are an enrichment center that offers advanced classes for gifted student in first through eighth grades. So teaching logic to kids is more than a way of life, is my passion. Although I’ve been playing chess since I was nine, it never occurred to me that it could be a tool for teaching logic and mathematics. Perhaps, I was hung up on the fact that I could never beat my older brother! A close friend works as the community education coordinator for a community college in the area. One day her chess teacher called and said that due to other commitments, he could no longer teach the class. This was a last minute notice and her class was about to start. She turned to me, “you love kids, you love logic, why not teach chess?” I started doing some research and soon fell in-love with the passion and enthusiasm that I perceived from other chess teachers and organizations. I started teaching a class of fourteen second graders, of which only two are girls. So far we had five sessions and I’m very impress with the children’s commitment and interest. The more I read on the web and prepare my lessons, the more I learn to appreciate the great teaching tool that chess is!
I’m sure that you’ll often hear from me with questions about the game and how to run the class. But for now, this is my question, how do I get more girls interested in chess? Even when I talk to parents they say that chess is for boys. I’m glad to have boys in my class, but would love to have more girls!

Parental Musings on Learning in Chess

The propaganda on chess tells us that it’s an all or nothing game. It tells us that there is winning and losing, and if you don’t have ‘it,’ well, you don’t have it. The general public thinks that either you’re a prodigy, and you immediately know how to play chess, or you aren’t and can’t. We are constantly given the impression that there are people who just immediately know chess. These people, we are led to believe, instantly see all the lines there are to be seen on the board. Little kids walk into the park, watch a few moves, and then instantly sit down and beat former GM’s at the game that they studied their whole lives to learn.

What don’t we see in the images of chess, chess learning, and chess playing? As someone who never so much as touched a chessboard in my youth, I was surprised to witness the insane amount of effort and time that kids and adults put into learning how to play a game. I never thought I’d be a parent sitting in a crowded room on a beautiful Saturday waiting for my child to finish a game of chess. I never thought I’d refer to other people’s kids by the numbers that they’ve earned from playing chess.

When children learn at school, they often doubt whether their learning will have any practical applications. In chess learning, there is no doubt for a child. It is clear for the child or adult learning to play chess that most of what they are learning will have an almost immediate application. Learning to play chess takes scores of complicated concepts and focuses them down onto 64 squares. Contained within a chessboard and chess set are mathematics, logic, social learning, anthropology, history, pedagogy, child development, psychology, competition, and joy. That is not nearly and exhaustive list of all of the things we can extract from or project onto a chessboard.

Now the only problem I have is how to win against my 10 year old son. It hasn’t happened in over 6 months, and I’m beginning to think it never will.